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katiz: http://community.livejournal.com/ontd_s ... 32023.htmlWorlds: Brian Joubert Aims for the PodiumConfidence found after his silver medal at the recent European Figure Skating Championships, Brian Joubert will aim for the podium at the world championships of the sport planned in Tokyo 21-27 March.
Crowned best skater in the world in 2007 on the same ice in the Japanese capital, the 26 year old Frenchman intends to strike a decisive blow in Asia to definitively turn the page on his fiasco at the Olympics last year in Vancouver, where he had finished a piteous 16th place, far from his true potential.
“We’ve worked on physical conditioning, the jumps. The technical content of the free program will be more important than at Euros, since my program will contain two quadruple toe loops and two triple axels,” explained Brian Joubert Thursday, a week before his flight to Tokyo.
Outstripped at Euros in Bern by his compatriot Florent Amodio, Joubert explains that this new French competition has relieved the pressure he carried when he was alone at the top.
“It does me well, people are no longer focused just on me,” he says. “Technically I am confident, I am physically solid, I have lost weight,” states Joubert.
[trans. Not clear whether he means lost physical weight or if a weight has been lifted off his shoulders] He has also gotten back this season with Veronique Guyon, his first coach in Poitiers, which has proven beneficial. “All the work done with Veronique is beginning to pay off,” he estimates.
If he is not openly aiming for the gold in Tokyo, it’s due to his injured left knee that has been bothering him since December. “We did “une infiltration”
[trans. Either drained it or injected it, the term isn’t clear] because the pain had become unmanageable. I’d began to compensate and was risking other injuries,” detailed Joubert. “There are blood clots lodged under the ligament. It will definitely be operated on in June.”
For Tokyo, Joubert has decided to remove the triple lutz from his short program to replace it with the triple flip. A fall on this lutz in Bern relegated him to 7th place at Euros after the short. “I have a mental block on that jump,” confessed the Frenchman, sensitive about this technical difficulty after two injures to his right foot in recent years.
“I love Asia, I’m well-liked there, I won my world title in Tokyo,” recalls Joubert who is thinking of the Canadian Patrick Chan and the Japanese Daisuke Takahashi, last year’s winner, who are the two main candidates for the world title.
When dueling against Amodio, he explains that there are opposing styles between the two Frenchmen.
“Florent is very light, very lively, more flexible than I. He can skate to Michael Jackson, if I did that I’d be ridiculed,” explains the French number one of the 00’s, known for his athletic skating. “His jumps are less high than mine, but he is fluid, he’s an actual cat. And I’ve seen him do quads.”
Brian Joubert announced that he hopes to prolong his career until Sochi in 2014. His list of achievements does not include an Olympic medal.
“It would make me happy, I believe I have the physical and mental capacity to do it. But for Sochi, I will have to reapply myself artistically to not be the old skater who is hanging on,” he says. Then he will turn the page on competition. “I want to coach, to put together an ice school,” mentions the triple champion of Europe, who in Bern climbed for the tenth consecutive time onto the continental competition podium.
... unlike of Tara Lipinski, which is allowed! 
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